You were always on my mind
by the fictional therapist
Summary: After what happened in Vegas both Jane and Lisbon feel the need to drown their sorrows in alcohol, because it turns out feelings can make everything a lot more painful.


**I wrote this while listening to Lady Antebellum's Need You Now. You will get this story much more if you listen to that whilst reading it. This is short, drabbly and depressing. I had planned on a happy ending, but I wasn't in the mood to write one, and my muse sort of got away from me. But I might add a second, happy ending chapter if my muse comes back.**

**Rating-T**

**Disclaimer-Not mine. Neither is the song.**

Teresa Lisbon sighed deeply. There was no way that it was good for a person to still be at work at 1am. It was also not good for that person to have a half empty bottle of whisky on the desk in front of them. But it wouldn't have been any better for her to be at home, lying awake in sheets that felt suffocating, thinking about her irreverent consultant. Not that she wasn't thinking about him now. If she was honest with herself there hadn't been a moment since his return from Vegas, not even when she was on a case or asleep, when he wasn't on her mind. He haunted her thoughts, his tricks, his smile, all the nice things he had said to her over the years. Most of all though, she thought of what he had said to her before the gunshot, the two words that filled her mind every second of every day. "Love you."

He hadn't meant it. He couldn't have meant it, having so recently been with Lorelei, having betrayed her so much by leaving for those six months. Telling her that was just another way to hurt her, to show her how little he cared about her. He didn't love her. Unfortunately her heart was a way behind her head in understanding that knowledge, and her heart still clenched painfully at the thought of him loving her. As if. She wasn't the sort of woman a man like Jane would want. He wanted women like Lorelei Martins, bombshells who nobody could fail to notice, not the tomboyish, forgettable Lisbon. There was no way he could truly love her, no matter what he said in the heat of the moment.

Jane had made it quite clear that he hadn't meant it, it was just something he said on the spur of the moment, when he was agitated. And it wasn't as if he had gone out of the way to patch things up with her recently, spending his whole day interrogating Red John's accomplice, and his nights drowning his sorrows in a bar, surrounding himself with the sort of miscreants he had accustomed himself to in Vegas. Even if he did happen to see Teresa he ignored her, walking quickly in the opposite direction. It was as if she had grown horns.

When Lorelei had called them 'lovers' it had hurt her in a place deep inside that she hadn't been aware of until that moment. But she still knew that she would have him back in a second if he wanted her. That was how much she loved him. Enough to let him use her like a doormat and still welcome him back with open arms. Not that he'd ever come back this time, having tasted what was out there, the women much more beautiful, funny and relaxed than her who fell at his feet. He would never choose her over the women he could have. She wasn't good enough for him.

She drained the remaining liquid from her glass in one gulp and rested her head in her hands sadly. He remained on her mind, no matter how hard she tried to get him out.

* * *

A matching glass of whisky was being nursed at a bar across town by a very depressed, slightly intoxicated Patrick Jane. He was just about tipsy enough to stop him from thinking about anything more than the whisky. He sipped at it and it burned warmly on the way down, warming him from the inside out. There was little that could warm him like that anymore, apart from his little superior, whose every touch lit him up from the inside out. Just the thought of her made him happier than he had been since he started ignoring her. Jane groaned inwardly. Even the numbing alcohol that had sustained him for the entirety of his Vegas adventure had lost its battle against the strength of his feelings. He swallowed the rest of his glass and motioned to the bartender for another.

The potency of his feelings for her had gone unnoticed for a long time, probably since he gave her the origami frog. The night with Lorelei had brought them all to the surface. When it came time to do the deed he had found it problematic to function as he needed to, even his reliable biofeedback techniques failing to get him hard. Months of planning were about to fall down around him, all because he couldn't find the will to harden, to perform. There was no way he could do it. He was going to fail. He would have abandoned the team, Rigsby, Cho, Grace and Lisbon for no reason. At the thought of Lisbon he had harden immediately and painfully, and when Lorelei demanded his body as her own Teresa was the only thing that got him through it, kept him hard while she used him as she saw fit.

The same images that had got him through that night were tormenting him now, reminding him of everything that he had lost, everything he had given up when he had broken his celibacy with Lorelei, the crazed accomplice, instead of with his caring, sweet Lisbon who had sacrificed so much to help him. Sheer disgust had radiated from her when Lorelei had called them 'lovers', and he knew that he had blown it with her forever. She would never take him back now.

He drained his new drink, and the next, and the next, in long sips, trying to numb the regret that filled him entirely.


End file.
